Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press; 50 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020 - Saturday, October 18, 1997; 6:23 a.m. EDT
Tara Meyer, Associated Press Writer
A recent media study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that of 399 published articles about HIV, only 8 percent mentioned the relevance of prevention.
"The danger of relaxing our focus on prevention in this new treatment era is perhaps greater than ever," said Dr. Helene D. Gayle, director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, Sexually Transmitted Disease & Tuberculosis Prevention. "Progress today could really be undone."
There were 100,000 new HIV infections each year in the mid-1980s; now the annual figure is about 40,000.
"However, I think it's fair to say that 40,000 new infections with a preventable disease is still by far too many," Ms. Gayle said Friday in a speech to the Associated Press Managing Editors national conference.
She implored media not to oversimplify powerful drug treatments that take a great toll on the human body while fighting HIV, and said reporters must scrutinize new findings on AIDS.
Ms. Gayle also defended studies that withhold an AIDS-fighting drug from pregnant women with the disease in developing countries. She said they are the best way to find an affordable and practical alternative for the region.
The cost of a proven AZT regimen is almost $1,000 per pregnant woman. That's 80 times the annual per capita health budget in many countries in the developing world, she said.
Pregnant women with AIDS must learn their HIV status early so they can receive intravenous AZT during labor and delivery. Then, the infant must be given AZT for six weeks.
In the developing world, where more than 1,000 babies a day are infected with HIV from their mothers, women often are not reached early in their prenatal care and intravenous use is not a widespread option.
"These studies are an attempt to evaluate whether a shorter, simpler and more cost-effective regimen of AZT, that does not require AZT through intravenous doses, is safe and effective in reducing perinatal transmission," she said.
Public Citizen, a watchdog group, has criticized the government's financing of the trials. Last month, the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine likened them to the infamous Tuskegee experiment in which penicillin was withheld from black men with syphilis in Alabama.
Ms. Gayle said ethics panels in the United States and in the participating countries reviewed and approved the studies beforehand. There was no such oversight in the Tuskegee studies.
Copyright 1997/The Associated Press. Reproduced with permission. Reproduction of this article (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the Permissions Desk, The Associated Press, 50 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020.
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Copyright © 1997 - Associated Press. Reproduction of this article (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the AP Permissions Desk.
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